


Religious Ecstasy

by x_los



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Ritual Sex, Season/Series 02, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:40:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4124356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Anyway, all that mattered to him was that he had to have sex with Aethel (acceptable) and Avon (under other, impossible circumstances: excellent; because literally no one else would come and they needed an alliance, and Avon was apparently willing to be vicious to him while they were both naked: less so)."</p><p>To secure an alliance, Blake must participate in a local harvest festival. Unfortunately, he also has to bring a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Religious Ecstasy

"I'm afraid I… can't," Gan said awkwardly. "You see I haven't been with anyone since my woman was killed. She was… hurt by several soldiers. And even though, like you say, this time it will be entirely what the lady wants— Blake, I'm sorry, I just couldn’t.”

"It's all right, Gan.” Blake put a hand on Gan's shoulder.

"I wish I could help. I don't want to be a bother about it."

"Gan, that's the farthest thing from my mind. Your reasons are more than understandable. I should never have asked it of you. _I'm_ sorry."

“I know you didn't mean anything by it." Gan cleared his throat. "Well. I'll go and get myself some lunch while you sort it out."

Gan left, and they listened to his steps fade away as he walked off in the direction of the mess.

" _That_ was not one of your finer displays of leadership," Avon observed. Somewhat low-hanging fruit, Blake thought.

"Thank you, Avon." Blake murmured sarcastically. He sat down heavily on the couch with a disgruntled sigh. “All right, Vila, what about you?"

"Well, with Gan out of the picture, the other man in the room would have to be one of you two. No offence, but I could just about manage with Gan. Either of you? Sheer physical impossibility."

"What's so uninspiring about us?" Blake asked in a rising tone that carried in it the suggestion that it could easily transition into a roar.

"Selling yourself a little short, aren't you Vila?" Avon raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "I'm certain you've had worse even than Blake.”

"Don't help, Avon,” Blake snapped.

"That right there is an ideal example of what I mean,” Vila said, pointing at Avon. “My poor prick retreated into my pelvis just listening, and god knows if I'm still capable of fathering children. Sure, you can be a bit intimidating, Blake, but continued exposure to Avon does a man's confidence in. It's like radiation poisoning, you know?"

Blake laughed outright. "All right Vila, I take your point. You're excused."

Vila took him literally and slipped out of the control room with surprising speed.

“I’m surprised he was willing to miss this," Avon commented.

"Vila's self-preservation instincts have always been highly developed – more so even than his sense of appreciation of the absurd."

"True. Well, Blake?"

“Well, what?"

"It's somewhat late to be coy."

“If I extend the invitation to you specifically, you'll just make rather obvious jokes at my expense. One of the locals must be willing to do it – it’s their ritual. And while I’d prefer _not_ to have to admit to them that the male members of my crew find their customs too strange and repulsive to participate in, I’ll try and salvage it somehow.” Blake bit his knuckle, thinking. “We need the Eleusinians' support. They're the best organized, most firmly anti-Federation planet we've found yet, and the protection their ion atmosphere provides––”

“––is unmatched.” Avon finished for him. “I know."

Blake sighed. "I'll ask that aide, I suppose. The obliging one. What was his name?"

Avon laughed, a bit nastily. He came around to sit on the other end of the couch, and Blake carefully didn't look at him.

"What’s the problem?

"Nothing. Dio is the obvious choice. So much so that it's amusing. All that talk of how greatly he admires your cause, how he longs to see the world beyond Eleusinia--"

"Some people are actually interested in fighting back, Avon. Cally and I aren't just staging some kind of extended performance art."

"Oh I don't doubt the reality of Dio's interest. In you."

Blake bit his knuckle harder. He hadn’t noticed that. "You think asking him to participate in the ritual might lead him on?"

"A matter of semantics."

"How so?"

"It is only leading him on if you do not intend to follow through."

"I don't."

"Married to the cause," Avon asked with amusement in his voice, "or simply uninterested in men?"

"Not exactly, and not interested in nineteen-year olds with infatuations. They're a lot of work, and it's not my sort of thing to begin with."

Problems like this had occasionally cropped up when Blake had led the Freedom Party, and had given him nothing but a series of headaches. Blake disliked having to disappoint good but naive people, who confused passion for the cause with passion for its representative.

"Ah, the perils of charismatic leadership." Blake didn't have to look--he could _feel_ Avon smirking outright now. "I'd have thought you'd have basked in the adulation."

“No, you know me better than that. _Well?_ "

“Well, what?"

"It's a little late to be coy now, Avon," Blake sniped back. "Though I hardly need ask--"

"Yes."

Blake couldn't stop himself from turning to look at Avon's blank face. "What?"

"Yes, I will do it."

" _Why?_ "

Avon shrugged. "As you say, we need them. And it does look better if we present ourselves as a united front." Avon smiled, as he often did when he found what he was saying unpleasant. Vila had once suggested that Avon was such a miseryguts that he actually drew sustenance from things going south.

"Will you be able to?" Blake asked bluntly.

"Will _you?_ " Avon responded.

"Yes."

"That is settled, then." Avon stood and left the flight deck.

Blake sighed and buried his head in his hands. He took a few moments to think about the inevitable screaming, painful awkwardness of having sex with the man he was in love with while simultaneously having sex with a high priestess in a religious ceremony to firm up a relationship with valuable allies. Then he called said valuable allies and, with a practiced warm smile spread across his face like butter over toast, told them that he'd consulted his crew, and that he and Avon would be only too happy to oblige the Eleusinians by participating in the Mysteries that evening.

***

Eleusinia had been settled very early by a group of independent colonists. The planet's remote location and the difficulty of getting through the ion cloud that blanketed it had given her a more independent culture than that of most other colony planets. Little was known about Eleusinia, and if the _Liberator_ hadn't been damaged by an engagement and thus desperately in need of assistance, the more cautious among her crew would have hesitated to request aid. Remote, long-settled colony worlds tended to be more Cygnus Alpha than Lindor. As it turned out, the planet _had_ developed an esoteric religion--but the High Priestess of the Mysteries was a pleasant, robust woman. Only in her booming voice and vigorous personality did she resemble the cult leader Vargas. More than anything, she reminded Blake of Honoria Glossop (he'd done history and lit at university, which provided him with frames of reference that were largely useless, insofar as almost no one shared them).

This religion apparently involved harvest festivals, which the agricultural planet took very seriously. The High Priestess, Aethel, also enjoyed great respect, and held a permanent position in an otherwise elected government of councilors. Aethel was very political--she wasted few words in telling Blake that, in her view, it was only a matter of time before what had happened to Albion happened to them. Dio, one of her subordinates, had also expressed a lot of interest in Blake’s work.

Encroaching Federation patrols had caused Eleusinia to institute high security measures, which had limited the population's ability to trade with other worlds. The Eleusinians were largely self-sufficient, but that very self-sufficiency meant that they severely resented any attempts to cramp their style. Eleusinians also seemed to have a particular distaste for the Federation's wide-spread use of pacification drugs. Their own harvest rituals included a fertility celebration that made use of mind-altering substances, taken willingly. But the position these drugs held in Eleusinian tradition, and the high honor associated with their use, made the people view mandatory, unwitting distribution of mind-altering drugs as not only profoundly disturbing, but also somewhat sacrilegious.

Aethel had been Blake's champion on the council, and she was convinced that providing a symbol of cooperation between the rebels and the religious order of Eleusinia would cement the connection between the preservation of their way of life and taking up with Blake in people's minds. She'd annoyed several of her own fellow councilors in offering Blake this chance, but it was ultimately her prerogative to choose her 'husbands' for the ceremony. Vila had made a crack about Blake really having made an impression there, and Blake had rolled his eyes and informed Vila that Aethel was, religious duties aside, a lesbian. He’d even had the chance to meet her charming wife (whom he'd privately dubbed Florence Craye) (which might, perhaps, be taken as an insult--but then he'd always had more sympathy for Florence's point of view, really, than for Bertie's).

Blake didn't quite know why there had to be two husbands to Aethel's bride, but he suspected it had something to do with the profound shortage of women in the colony's early days, and the consequent century in which polyandry had been popular on the planet. Aethel had explained it all very quickly, rushing towards the central question. Teleporting was less direct than Aethel.

Anyway, all that mattered to him was that he had to have sex with Aethel (acceptable) and Avon (under other, impossible circumstances: excellent; because literally no one else would come and they needed an alliance, and Avon was apparently willing to be vicious to him while they were both naked: less so).

Vila and Cally were manning the teleport when Blake came in at the appropriate time. Aethel had said there wasn't really a dress code, and so he'd gone with something rich and green that suggested a special occasion and, possibly, fertility. Avon, who came in a moment later, had, apparently, not had the same idea. What about knee-high boots suggested 'happy harvest'?

"We'll teleport down to the chief temple, into Aethel's office. She'll be waiting to brief us."

"Have fun," Vila said. Cally appeared to kick him under the table. "What? Aethel's a nice lady, and it's a party--I'm heading down myself, when things get going."

"We'll be sure to send you a post card," Avon snapped, stepping into the teleport. Without looking at him, Blake did the same. They vanished.

"Who knows," Vila muttered, "after a few drinks Blake might even be able to find and extricate whatever's crawled up Avon's arse and died there. He's been worse than usual this afternoon, and that's saying something."

Cally opened her mouth to explain a few things to Vila--tact as a concept, why Avon might be upset, and why baiting the two of them about this in particular was injudicious and in poor taste--but then shook her head and decided she had better things to do.

"Remember, you're on first watch, so that you can enjoy the festival later, when everyone's drunk too much."

"Where are you off to then?"

"I'm going down to help Dio with the preparations.I like communal festivals--and besides, cooks are usually entitled to the best food."

"Good thinking."

Vila teleported her down and sat back to contemplate his own good fortune in not getting inveigled in the Mysteries after all. He'd done sillier things to get in with a woman, and it seemed, in his old age, that he was finally learning some caution.

***

There had been a wonderful dinner. Blake had honestly never had anything like it, and judging by the occasional, quickly-suppressed widening of his eyes, neither had Dome-bred Avon. Blake wished everyone had a chance to eat like this. All but the richest people on Earth subsisted on an unrelieved diet of the Federation's medication-laced slurry. Earth could have produced real food, but the Federation always prioritized heavy industry over common consumer goods.

Blake had spotted Cally down the other end of the table, with Dio, and had given her an ironic 'we who are about to die' toast.

 _It will be fine_ , she said in his mind. _Truly, I believe it will._

 _Who says I'm scared?_ he'd mouthed back at her.

 _Your fixed grin is very speaking_ , Cally said with a mental laugh.

Then there'd been a procession to the inner chambers of the temple, and the revelers had drifted off and left Blake and Avon alone with Aethel and her assistant priestess. The room was dimly lit and smoky. Blake felt like there was too much oxygen in his brain; felt slightly high, even from this indirect exposure to the vents.

"Do the gentlemen wish to partake?" the assistant priestess asked Aethel, flicking a glance over at them.

"It's really and truly optional," Aethel informed Blake. "I have to receive the vapors, of course, but you and your companion can do as you like."

"I don't feel vey comfortable taking anything psychotropic, after having lived in the Domes," Blake said apologetically. Aethel nodded in an understanding way.

"If Blake chooses to be sober, then so do I," Avon answered. The assistant priestess smiled like he'd said something supportive, but Blake knew 'so Blake doesn't haveany advantage over me' even when he didn't explicitly hear it, and his mouth went tight with annoyance.

"Let's get on with it then."

Aethel walked forward, and her assistant hurried past Aethel to draw back a curtain for her. She let it fall after Aethel entered the alcove, and Blake and Avon could only see the silhouette of the robed woman, kneeling to breathe in the vapors. Then the silhouette began to twitch and writhe, to pant and whimper as the vapor took effect.

"Is she all right?" Blake asked despite himself, knowing that this was the process as Aethel had described it.

"Of course," the assistant priestess assured him. "She'll be very distracted when she comes out--and then she'll fall into a divine ecstasy, and be ready to receive you. You must all proceed to the bridal chamber, and in the morning she'll have slept it off, and you can all have some refreshment. Her wife will probably be at breakfast as well--she usually is."

"What's to stop us from spending a night in chaste contemplation?" Avon asked in a monotone.

"Aethel, probably. She'll be _very ready to receive you_. Besides," the assistant priestess's tone took on a sharp edge, “I'm certain you Divine Husbands wouldn't want to foul up our next harvest."

"It's an honor to take part in these rituals." Blake said to her. "And it's too late to back out now," he hissed to Avon.

"I wasn't considering it. Merely raising a hypothetical question."

The assistant fetched Aethel and led them all down a short corridor, into a bedroom suite. She guided Aethel down to the bed, gave her superior's shoulder an affectionate squeeze, and headed out, with instructions that, in the unlikely event that they should need anything, they should use the wall com. And it did seem unlikely. Aethel had planned the ceremony, and thus the preparations were thorough. Tucked inside the discreet drawers were, neatly sorted and hygienically packed, food, lube, toys and all manner of contingency items. (Aethel had already given them both a contraceptive solution back in her office. Two children were enough for her, thank you very much.)

"Something about the index is slightly dampening to the libido," Blake said, thumbing the itemized guide Aethel had left them.

"On the contrary, among computer technicians I believe _that_ would constitute pornography.” Avon nodded at it.

"Nng," Athel added, pushing herself up on her elbows and looking around at them. "Undress," she instructed, then fell back down again.

"You heard the lady," Avon said after a moment.

Refraining from asking whether Avon would need help with that, or perhaps an apparatus of some sort to escape from his prison of tight leather (there was probably a shoehorn in here somewhere), Blake turned around and shrugged off his tunic, shirt and trousers, letting them drop to the floor. He silently bet himself credits that even in a situation like this Avon would fold his clothes neatly on the chair, and, when he glanced over at said chair, won.

Aethel struggled to get out of the folds of her loose ceremonial robe, but managed with a little help from Blake. Blake had to kneel on the bed beside Aethel to assist her, and she started idly stroking his side, then pulled him into a kiss. Blake was a little clumsy at first. He was more than a little out of practice.But after a while he relaxed into it. He pushed a hand into Aethel's hair, jarring the bun, and properly kissed her back. Blake liked kissing--liked pushing into someone's mouth and the reverse, the warmth and closeness of it, the light breath on his face and the leisurely slide, the shifts in position, the prolonged engagement. More sensual and relaxed than fucking--less purposive, more about sensation and enjoyment. He liked kissing’s easy, lightly-weighted trades between authority and acceptance. No one kissed to dominate, not for anything more prolonged than a few moments. It just wouldn't have been interesting. A good kiss was always a conversation.

Blake could't remember the last time he'd kissed someone (he _really_ didn't count the fraternal peck he'd given his cousin). Aethel had a pleasing, solid shape. She was soft, and pressed pleasantly into him. He closed his eyes, and for a moment he could pretend that this was just him and a female friend having an enjoyable, strings-free evening, like the few he'd had in university before he'd worked out that he preferred sleeping with men, all things considered. But when he opened his eyes, he found he was staring at Avon, who stood unclothed, a few feet away from the bed, wearing nothing but an unreadable expression.

Other people might not have found Avon's unclothed body particularly remarkable. He was pale, on the slight side of average. Blake knew from long experience of looking at Avon that his face was mercurial. Certain angles made him look garish and ridiculous. Certain expressions made him look cruel, brutish in a way Blake hadn't any interest in. Then, at other moments, he was achingly lovely. Everything good in him, everything that was complicated and bitter, but rich and worthwhile, was right there, suddenly pressing up against the skin, straining to get out into the world. And in those moments Blake wondered how it was that everyone didn't love Avon, wondered that it was ever possible to miss such naked, obvious parts of his personality. How little what Avon said matched what he did, and how little what he said matched itself, at times. People were generally comfortable saying that others were beautiful or not, as if beauty was some static state. And with some people, it was. But Avon's attractiveness, or lack thereof, was a collection of impressions that shifted rapidly in accordance with his disposition. More interesting, Blake thought, than constant, fixed good looks.

And once you understood Avon, it was impossible _not_ to understand him. Unfortunately for Blake, he'd understood Avon from almost their first conversation. There was a part of Avon that wanted to be understood, and Blake couldn't refuse it, even when Avon was being bloody-minded and exasperating and Blake would really, _really_ have liked to. Avon was deeply loyal, and deeply craved a commensurate loyalty from others. He wanted to be seen as he was, and the desire disgusted him, and he went to great lengths to hide it, even from himself. Blake could never tell what Avon thought about _him_ (though he was fairly certain that it was negative enough that he didn't actually want to know), but he'd never been in doubt about what sort of man Avon was: ultimately a wildly, stupidly good one by his own lights, and against his own better judgment.

Blake found Avon's body remarkable because it was Avon's. Because the room's soft light made Avon’s pale skin slightly luminous, because of the inviting way his thumb rested against his hip, and because Avon had tilted his chin up slightly, in defiance of the embarrassment he obviously felt (Blake had never seen Avon _flushed_ before).

Blake had stopped kissing Aethel to look at Avon, and had to quickly cover himself by snapping "do you intend to help, at any point?"

"You seemed to be getting on well without me."

 _Hardly_. Blake had pushed himself to this point because Blake could make himself do almost anything, if it was necessary. And he could be surprisingly good at compartmentalizing his feelings, only pulling them out and sorting through them later, if ever. He knew he wasn’t going to _like_ watching someone else touch Avon, when even the idea that Avon might have been involved with someone (who the hell was in that photograph he’d been fondling on the London? Who did Avon care about? Did he still care? Could whoever it was give Blake tips?) before he and Blake had known each other disturbed Blake and had once made him press (inappropriately, he knew) for more information. Avon had lacerated him for his trouble, and Blake had felt a little like he’d been served right. Blake was displeased with himself for being jealous, when Avon wasn’t his to be jealous of in the first place, and when it was an ugly emotion, running counter to better qualities he could generally rely on in himself.

This was going to be painful, and awkward. Avon would look at him in bed with apathy or cold disdain, and it would bloody well hurt. Vila wasn’t wrong--Avon could be withering. Especially if you valued his opinion of you, and it wasn’t favorable. He knew Avon would have appreciated greater transparency from him and greater involvement in decisions regarding the _Liberator_ , but even so, Blake tended to close down and tell Avon less of what he was thinking then he might have if he’d thought Avon would be anything like a sympathetic audience. Which severely limited Blake, at times, given how useful he found Avon’s technical expertise and general opinion--which had often served as a productive foil to his own thinking.

This would _linger_ , too--Avon’s every sneer, in future, would carry a hint that he found Blake utterly undesirable, that he’d seen Blake at his most vulnerable and found him ridiculous. Oh it was _worth_ it, Blake knew--he’d have swallowed a knife to get this alliance. But he didn’t necessarily rank going through this highly above knife-swallowing.

And yet. He had an opportunity to look at Avon--possibly to touch him. It felt illicitly obtained, because he hadn’t told Avon that he actually wanted any part of this. But then he generally tried not to make a habit of humiliating himself in front of Avon, and Avon had known exactly what he was consenting to, materially. Just not that Blake wouldn’t be able to push out of his mind what Avon looked like at _his_ most vulnerable, and not how Blake’s heart was thudding, heavy and unruly, at the thought that soon he’d know.

"You remember what Aethel said--we both have to be inside her. Simultaneously." Blake swallowed and tried to focus on Aethel, not to look at Avon’s body more than was necessary--and definitely not to look away from his face, down at his cock. Aethel had specified vaginal double penetration. It was, after all, a fertility rite. (Which meant Avon’s cock sliding against his in a messy frot--Blake curtailed his anticipation abruptly.)

"I remember."

"Well then, let's get started, shall we?" Blake said it slightly sarcastically, and Aethel made a displeased noise at the harshness of his tone and tried to pull him on top of her.

Avon sat down on the bed gingerly, like a cat deciding whether it liked the position. He took Aethel's chin in his hand, and she willingly followed him, clearly interested in more attention than the distracted Blake was giving her.

"Hello, Aethel," Avon said with surprising politeness, and kissed her thoroughly, running a hand down her breastbone, cupping and kneading her breast, rolling his palm over her soft nipple and giving it a sound tweak when it firmed. Aethel put her arms around his neck, and Avon ran a hand down her back.

Blake stared at his hand. It glided down just to the top of her ass, then came back up to rest splayed across her spine. Blake's gaze fixed on it. Avon kissed Aethel deeply, pulling back and nipping her lip with something like affection, and then pushing back into the kiss. There was something tense and calculated in it, like he was set on impressing Blake, even here--but even so, it was obvious from his technique that he enjoyed the act in a general sense (and less obvious what, if anything, he felt about doing it now). Aethel was drugged and so fuzzily, happily compliant. Blake felt a stab of unwarranted irritation with her. He could do better in her place. He'd hold Avon tighter than she did, because he suspected, protests against being contained aside, that Avon would enjoy that. That he wanted to feel wanted, and safe. Aethel _allowed_ Avon to kiss her, but in her place Blake would press into Avon or pull Avon up onto his lap, and he'd certainly kiss Avon back with enough enthusiasm to shake Avon's studied proficiency into something more desperate and real.

To distract himself Blake pulled hairpins out of Aethel's bun, and unwound her hair until it flowed loose, curling it around his fingers. He caught Avon glancing at him through the partial-curtain of Aethel's dark-blonde hair. Avon was still kissing Aethel, and the expression in his eyes was intense. He seemed to be watching Blake--probably wondering why he wasn't pulling more weight, Blake thought wryly. Answering the unspoken criticism, Blake trailed a line of kisses down Aethel's neck and left shoulder. Avon broke off to lathe the right side of her neck with his tongue, and then to bite it, suddenly, with a precise harshness that made Aethel gasp and clutch at his head. Blake laughed, just a little. What was Avon trying to prove, mirroring him like this?

"What's so amusing?" Avon almost snarled, bristling.

"Nothing," Blake said honestly. It was sadder than it was funny. His own neck seemed to tingle where Avon wasn't touching it, and he was well and truly hard now—actually he worried he might have _become_ visibly hard when he first looked over at Avon.

"You'd better start,” Avon said. “You're larger. There's no need for this to take all night." Avon had become, if anything, more defensive, and Blake resisted the urge to sigh. But he was also keenly aware that Avon had, at some point Blake had missed, looked him over thoroughly and, possibly, had not been wholly unimpressed. The thought of Avon looking at him sent an uncomfortable wave of heat through his body.

Blake got the lubricant out of the drawer beside him, slicked his hand, and pulled Aethel’s back to his chest, tucking her head under his chin, leaving them both still sitting up. She made a slight, confused noise, and Blake felt a pang of displeasure at doing this with someone who wasn't sober when he was, no matter that the thing had been her idea in the first place.

"There now," he soothed, splaying his dry hand across her stomach. "It's all right," he said tenderly, pitying her. "I've got you."

His reassurances seemed to work--Aethel sagged against him in relaxation and wriggled a little, in a 'get on with it' sort of way. Blake brought his slick hand to her clit, and stroked it with his thumb. She mewled, and he buried her face in her hair, taking in its clean smell. It was easier than looking at Avon, who he’d seen flinch slightly at the sound. Blake’s heart had clenched slightly at the expression. Trust Avon to be that disgusted by anyone having an actual feeling, at responding to anything Blake did with pleasure.

Blake slid his fingers down to her opening, and found her as wet as he thought it possible to be--her inner thighs were slick with it. She hadn't been exaggerating the aphrodisiac's effects. Two of Blake's thick fingers entered her easily, and he tried a third and managed it without difficulty. He pumped in and out of her and started to move his thumb in circles around her clit--the position was slightly awkward, but comfortable enough. Besides, it was probably good for Avon. He could look at the woman being pleasured and forget, as best he could, that these were Blake's fingers buried in her, Blake's free hand sliding up her stomach to cradle the breast Avon had teased a moment ago.

Thinking of Avon, Blake spared a sideways glance over at him and bit his lip to stop his breath audibly catching. Avon's cock was strainingly heavy, and his mouth was slightly parted. In pulling away earlier, Aethel had mussed his overly-neat hair, and Avon's eyes were shining.

"Are you all right?" Blake asked, suddenly afraid that for whatever reason, Avon wasn't. Blake still thought this was a terrible idea, but most of the damage was done, now, and his consolation was that he’d get to watch Avon come. When Avon needled him about this in future, it’d hurt, but he could go back to his cabin at the end of his shift and remember how Avon had looked and breathed and been, the smell of him, all of which he’d probably have liked to have kept to himself. But surely not even Avon would be able to manage that. But he _wouldn't_ pressure Avon to actually have sex with him. Or anyone to have sex they didn't want to have with anyone. He’d go no further than he had done in laying out what was at stake and asking for volunteers. If Avon wanted to back out, Blake would lie to the Elusians, and hope they didn't have some means of finding out, and that Aethel herself didn't remember clearly. Or perhaps they could explain--

"I'm _perfectly fine_ ," Avon said. "I'm not going to cost you your precious alliance."

"Avon, I'm serious. It doesn't matter. If you don't want to--"

Avon laughed like that wasn't a problem. "I can look after myself Blake. I don't need a nursemaid. I certainly don't need you to act in that capacity."

"Good. Because I don't think of myself in that capacity."

Blake caught and held his gaze, and it was Avon who broke it, turning to the drawer beside him and pulling out something. A transparent package of cock rings, neatly labeled.

"You'll need this. We're supposed to come together."

"I remember," Blake said, perhaps too warmly. He made his voice drop to a more normal register. "If you say so."

Avon tossed the packet, and Blake caught it in his free hand, taking out one of the two devices therein. The ring worked along the lines of a certain old-style linkage you still saw in certain vintage systems he'd inspected as a project engineer, and Blake easily figured out its mechanism, fastening it onto his considerable erection while still supporting Aethel against him. She was getting restless, and sunk down on his cock with something like relief, and strained breathing. She raised and lowered herself on her knees, appreciating the feel of him in her, moaning a little. It had been some time since Blake had had sex with anyone, and Aethel’s back against his chest, the tight heat of her, and how responsive she was (though Blake didn’t flatter himself too greatly--he knew the bulk that was the aphrodisiac) felt genuinely lovely, and all combined to crowd out some of Blake’s awareness that Avon didn’t want to be here with him. Avon's eyes seemed irresistibly drawn to her cunt, the way it took Blake in to the hilt. He wetted his lips. Blake felt his cock throb under the attention, at the gesture.

"It's going to be—difficult,” Avon said, without managing to look up at Blake’s face. “For us both to fit."

"I'm sure you'll work something out, Avon." Blake regarded him steadily. It was all right, now. He could blame any reaction on being buried deeply in Aethel.

Avon approached, and it was all Blake could do not to touch him. He hadn't yet. They hadn't even accidentally brushed hands across Aethel's body. Blake still didn't know what Avon's smelled like, what his hair felt like. It was typical of Avon, to manage to remain maddeningly distant, even when they were sharing a bed, and a partner.

Avon bent to take Aethel's nipple into his mouth--the as-yet-neglected one--and he sucked first it, then the other. Aethel audibly enjoyed this, fluttering and clenching around Blake's cock in a way Blake found distracting. He was grateful for Avon's earlier precautions, particularly when Avon, still licking her breasts, moved a hand down to Aethel's clit, and draped fingers across her mound in what was almost a proprietary gesture. Blake's breath did catch when, after a moment, Avon slid two fingers into Aethel, and suddenly her pleasant warm slickness was augmented by Avon's fingers, sliding along his length inside her.

"I do have to make room," Avon said, almost accusingly, in response to the sound.

"Of course," Blake conceded, and he bit his lip as Avon, probably incidentally, seemed to trace and explore his cock.

"She's not quite ready," Avon said with a frown, as though this were any other technical problem. Avon crouched down, like he was inspecting the situation, and then slid onto his belly and delicately licked her clit. He slid his fingers out of the way (which involved making a circuit of the base of Blake's cock and then pushing his fingers back into Aethel on the other side, traveling up along Blake's cock like it was an in-road). Avon then tried less fastidious, broader strokes with his tongue, moving down from Aethel's clit to her entrance. His tongue brushed across Blake's cock where it entered her, and his lower lip dragged across it. Blake gasped.

“I apologise," Avon said, unconvincingly (Blake wondered if Avon had ever made a convincing-sounding apology in his life). Whether he was sorry or not, the same thing happened several more times, almost as though he was doing it on purpose. Blake tried to keep his breath from going ragged, though really it was patently absurd. Of _course_ his body responded to stimulation. Only with Avon would admitting such an obvious fact be embarrassing.

Avon added another finger. He seemed to be concentrating very hard, burying his face in Aethel's thighs. To get his thumb into a position to rub Aethel and his fingers into her while he continued tonguing her, Avon had to circle Blake's cock in something rather like a hand job, grinding the ring into him and seeming almost to service Blake while simultaneously punishing him for being in this situation. It was a matter of sheer logistics, but it was driving Blake to distraction. Aethel, apparently, was enjoying it in an uncomplicated, gasping sort of way. She had her hands in Avon’s hair. Blake stopped himself from smacking them off Avon. Just.

"Are you _quite_ ready?" Blake snapped.

"Yes, actually." Avon pulled back, and his hair was an even bigger mess from Aethel playing with it (like Blake wanted to) while he went down on her. His lips were wet with her, and he gave Blake a lazy, self-satisfied smile. Blake was achingly turned on and jealous and dazed. His hand twitched with the suppressed impulse to touch him.

“You might want to wipe your mouth,” he said slightly coldly, and he had the ambivalent pleasure of seeing that particularly enraging, attractive smile drop off Avon’s face. Avon reached over to the side table and dabbed his mouth gingerly with a tissue, expressionless by the time he came back. That was better. Blake felt markedly calmer. Perhaps it had been less than generous of him, but Avon had been _covered_ in her and Blake hadn’t felt quite sane.

“You’ll need a ring as well," Blake pointed out, nodding at the packet.

Avon took it out and looked at it, perplexed. Blake saw that he'd have to show him how it worked. He slid out of Aethel, and guided her down to the bed. Aethel made a protesting, indignant noise at being abandoned, and he patted her hip reassuringly. It wasn’t her fault that he was ludicrously annoyed that it hadn’t been him making a mess of Avon. He really had only himself to blame.

"Like this," Blake said, spinning the device open with a practiced hand, relieved to be speaking to Avon normally, to be useful to him. "The real knack is closing them. You can see where their technology's branched off from ours--no one's used these spin closures in anything for a century.” It occurred to Blake that he couldn’t just explain the next bit. It’d be simple to show Avon, but if he explained it Avon might not immediately understand, and whatever he said, he’d feel himself at fault rather than the explanation. Avon hated to be embarrassed, and to do it to him now seemed exceptionally cruel. Blake swallowed.

“I'm afraid I have to--" Blake moved into Avon's space, and Avon let him, holding still as Blake's hand closed around his cock. Avon gasped, and Blake felt a small sense of victory-- _that_ was the normal reaction to the touch, and he'd managed to hold off where Avon hadn't, even though it meant more to him. More prominently, Blake felt his pulse juddering. Avon’s cock was in his hand. He didn’t quite risk looking down at it, but looking at Avon’s face while he held him felt no less sensual to Blake. He _badly_ wanted to stoke Avon off. Instead he gripped Avon firmly as he spun the close tighter. "Say when."

"When," Avon said after a moment, and Blake looked down to inspect his handiwork.

"Avon that's several degrees too tight. You’ll hurt yourself." Blake spun the ring slightly looser, and Avon looked up at him, for an instant, like he might drop onto Blake's shoulder, or properly kiss him. Blake held still, hoping. Avon said nothing and looked over at Aethel, and Blake pulled back, feeling disappointed and _stupid_ for being disappointed. What did Avon owe him? What did he expect?

He laid down on his back.

"Aethel--could you come here, please?" Aethel scrambled onto him, sliding back onto his cock, her breasts pressed against his chest, and Blake felt slightly better for a moment because she was inviting and eager, and what she did to him felt uncomplicated and good. “You’re all right?" She nodded. "Good. Try it now," he said to Avon, and he distinctly didn't throw his head back when Avon's fingers returned, working faster and more vigorously than they had before.

"Ready?" Avon asked, and Blake nodded, not quite trusting his tone.

Avon pushed in slowly, and Blake groaned at the sudden tight stretch of Aethel around him, the friction of Avon's cock against his own, the way the head of Avon's cock caught at the head of his as Avon, sitting up, buried himself more deeply in Aethel than Blake's position allowed for. He groaned again as Avon started moving, and Avon’s face lit up with something like triumph. Most likely it was pleasure at being inside Aethel, but Blake wished it was because he'd made Blake crack, wished it for selfish reasons and wished he could give Avon that kind of happiness. Even what Avon thought he wanted--fewer engagements with the Federation, an organisation that would kill Avon, no matter where he went, if it wasn't destroyed--couldn't make Avon smile like that. Avon seemed particularly bad at understanding what might make him happy, and Blake wished he could understand it for him, and could make sure he had it, even before Avon realized he wanted it. He had to check himself, before he said or did something blatant and stupid, before this ended in utter humiliation and disaster. He’d thought he had a better handle on himself than this.

"You'll have to manage the rhythm," Blake murmured. Whatever else was going on, this _felt_ exquisite.

"Willing to let me set the pace?" Avon said with a trace of mockery.

"So long as you get on with it," Blake said, a trace of indulgence in his tone.

"I do try not to disappoint," Avon said in a similarly light register, and Blake's heart ached because it was true. What was any of this but Avon’s attempt, after everything, not to disappoint him? Of course, he might be wrong about Avon's motivations--it was arrogant to believe you knew someone––but Blake found a path of least resistance through Avon's actions, the solution that best explained the conflicting available data. That hypothesis suggested that Avon hated disappointing anyone he was close to. And, like it or not––like _them_ or not––Avon was close to almost everyone on the _Liberator_ now.

But then Blake was too distracted to think because Avon was trying to impress him again, with a neat, steady rhythm Blake suspected he could have timed with a metronome. In fact, he almost suspected someone had made Avon take rather a lot of piano lessons as a child. But the technique was excellent, studied or no. Aethel seemed to enjoy it, panting into Blake's neck and dripping down onto his thighs. Blake gripped her back so he didn't touch her legs, and thus skim Avon's.

The sight of Blake's hands on Aethel's back seemed to spur Avon to a new competitive height. Avon gripped Aethel's hips almost hard enough to bruise and sped up significantly. It _felt_ like Avon was fucking him. Strange (good, but strange) as the sensations were, Avon was moving against him, grinding into his cock, bringing him off. Avon was looking at him. He could hardly avoid looking at him over Aethel’s shoulder, after all. But god, it felt wonderfully like Avon was desperately giving himself to Blake, like his small sounds and hard breaths and his effort were for and because of Blake. Like he was making some grand, botched gift of himself, and wanted Blake to notice.

"Nngh," Blake said, "God, A--ethel," he groaned, managing not to let his imagination get away with itself and cause him to make a pig's ear of the whole thing. Fortunately Aethel was sucking on his neck, and he had some pretext for the outburst. Avon actually _snarled_ as, at the same moment, Aethel clenched around them. He lost his metonym-quality and fucked like he was furious, his breathing ragged. Aethel tightened like she was terribly close, and began to moan softly and continuously. Blake loosed his own ring and then his hand moved to Avon's. Avon made a wild, choked sound when Blake touched his cock and he sprung free, and Aethel started to come around them.

Avon slumped over her, and Blake wondered if he was trying to get to her neck again and too out of it to do it properly. But then Avon was half-whimpering _his_ name and trying feverishly to kiss him over Aethel. He looked close to crying, and Blake's hands automatically flew up to clutch at Avon's sides needily. Avon's skin was gorgeously soft in a totally different way than Aethel's, and Blake looked him in the eye and said "Avon, come for _me_." Avon choked, like that was the best thing he'd ever heard, and Blake _felt him do it_ because _he'd asked_ , and came himself, with a groan like an animal.

"That counts," Avon said, pulling out of Aethel so abruptly it hurt Blake's now-sensitive cock.

Blake struggled out from underneath Aethel, who, duty done, seemed content to pass out. He was a little surprised, when he'd nudged her over to one side of the large bed, to find Avon on top of him, shoving him down and kissing him with an urgency that belied their both having just come.

There was always a part of Avon that wanted to be understood. It had made itself very plain, only a moment ago. Blake hadn't listened before because he wanted it too much. But now Avon was kissing him like he was taking possession, and Blake wondered if Avon had watched Blake kiss someone who wasn't him like he had watched Avon kiss Aethel, and knew he _had_.

“You’re not leading _me_ on?" Avon gasped into Blake’s neck, not pausing for an answer, diving straight into biting Blake's neck hard enough to leave a mark.

"Semantics," Blake said, unable to help himself. Avon had been an _arse_ about that.

" _Blake_ ," Avon snarled, and as usual his words were at odds with his actions, because he was sliding his hands across Blake's chest and thighs like all of it was his and he wanted to touch all of it, at once.

"But I've already followed through!" Blake said, laughing because he was happier than he could remember being, and maybe Avon wasn't the only one who didn't know how to do that for himself.

"Blake," Avon almost begged, and Blake instantly felt chastened.

"You're wonderful," Blake said, and he took Avon's head in his hands and smoothed his hair and kissed Avon's forehead in a way that he was fairly sure Avon was going to mock later and not let him do again.

" _And?_ "

"I don't like adulation, I like you. Difficult, wonderful--I love you, I love you more than life--and you love me."

"I didn't say that."

"Didn't you?" Blake laughed again, because Avon couldn't have been more transparent if he'd been Orac. "Was it terrible?"

Avon groaned lavishly. "I could have killed her on eight occasions. At least."

"Avon, be fair—it's hardly her fault."

" _That_ is rather beside the point."

"I'm sorry. I should have--known," Blake said lamely.

Avon snorted. "I went to a lot of trouble to conceal the information. In this case, I thought I could handle it better than I could. Or at least, it seemed the best of the available options. If we're ever in similar circumstances, I trust you won't ask _Vila or Gan--_ "

"Well," Blake said mock-politely, "not if there are any pleasant nineteen-year olds in the vicinity." Avon glared at him, and Blake felt irresistibly compelled to give his mouth a quick kiss. He hoped no one ever told Avon he pouted. He might stop doing it. “If it helps, I didn't much like the prospect of doing this with Vila or Gan any more than I liked the idea of spending the evening with--” Blake struggled to remember what’s-his-name.

“Dio,” Avon smugly supplied.

“Right, yes. Or Dio, or anyone else who wasn’t you.”

"Can I suck you off?" Avon asked quite innocently.

“ _No,_ ” Blake laughed, surprised. “For god's sake, we've been through the wars.”

"I could make it very worth your while--"

“No, you couldn’t. I'm still exhausted from your earlier enthusiasm. Why do you want it?"

“You have, as someone should have told you by now, a very attractive cock.”

“I’d return the compliment, but I spent the better part of the night trying not to look at yours. Rest assured, it feels wonderful, and I look forward to knowing it better. _Why now?_ ”

“You’re still _dripping_ with her, it’s driving me--”

“You’re covered in her too!” Blake pointed out. He then relented slightly. “Thank god you used the tissue, I was close to punching someone. Possibly myself.”

Avon smiled the same lazy smile, and this time Blake found he didn’t mind it at all. “Were you? Good. On this note, given the display I was forced to endure, when do you anticipate being prepared to fuck me?”

“ _Tomorrow_ , Avon.”

"Fine," Avon huffed, and consented to fall asleep with Blake's hand on his hip, which miracle was almost enough to make Blake a convert to the Eleusinian religion.

***

In the morning over breakfast they met Aethel's wife, who asked how it had gone as though it had been a grueling council meeting, and presided over a pot of a very appealing blend of coffee and hot chocolate that seemed to be a breakfast staple on Eleusinia. Aethel recalled things only in vague terms, but said the rite had been carried out, so that was all well and good. Then she moved onto the apparently-more-interesting-to-her discussion of how their son's harvest-pageant costume had been received.

Well, Blake thought with some amusement, at least the rest of us found it memorable.

"Oh, and by the way--" Aethelsaid around a bite of sausage, "my wife's reminded me that as outsiders, you won't know that participants in the ceremony are technically married. My actual marriage supersedes this, but we have a month-long waiting period on divorces here. So unless you're sticking around longer than that, I'm afraid you'll be legally wedded here until you swing around again and testify in person. I can't imagine it cramping your style much in the wider world."

Blake felt a moment's panic. Was Avon going to kill him, even though it was an obvious mistake and a silly clerical technicality? In any broader sense, was he ready to be married? Did he ever want that? He supposed he didn't see himself with anyone _but_ Avon in the future, but he hadn't really allowed himself to think--

"Oh, dear," Avon said in a voice that indicated he wasn't terribly upset. "Perhaps we can attend to that when we come back through." He concluded the discussion in the voice he used to suggest that he _might_ do the repairs he himself thought were useless, but that Blake wanted. Blake had noticed that repairs in that category somehow never did get done.

Blake didn't really have time to process what had happened any more than that, because they wrapped up their affairs on Eleusinia with speed in the next minutes.

"I'm _especially_ glad it wasn't Vila or Gan," he said in an undertone as the two of them stepped away from the breakfast table.

"Yes," Avon said in a tone that indicated he, they, and possibly the planet should be grateful indeed at this turn of events. "Cally, bring us up."

Like a flash of deja vu, Cally and Vila sat in the teleport bay. Cally manned the machines, and Vila, looking worse for the wear, seemingly did nothing but take up space.

"How did it go?" Cally asked, forestalling Vila's ruder version of the question.

"Perfectly well. It's all wrapped up," Blake told her with a smile.

"And Blake and I are married," Avon said, taking off his teleport bracelet and shelving his and Blake's in the box correctly (like Vila never bothered to). Blake raised an eyebrow at his ready disclosure.

“Mystically?" Vila asked, frowning.

"Marriage is traditionally religious, as far as I am aware,” Avon said.

“Well, yeah but--for _real?_ "

"Oh, absolutely.” Avon grinned, and walked off towards his rooms for a change of clothing.

"Blake, what is all this?" Vila demanded.

"Something wrong with your hearing, Vila?" Blake said mildly, following Avon. He had to have a talk with Avon about dragooning him into marriage. Or trying to. And about whether he actually wanted to be dragooned into marriage. And about whether, as advertised, Avon was interested in sucking him off and making it worth his while.

Vila turned to Cally. "What the _hell_ do they do in these Mysteries?"

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by aralias


End file.
